Incoherent commentary on the first book here and the second book here.

Look, I already babbled about this once and GR ate my babble.

So now I am ill-disposed to rebabble.

As ever, I can't remember specific events of this particular trilogy but I did think it had a more trad fantasy feel than Assassin's Blah. That's a political story through the an intensely personal lens - this is grander and more epic in scope.

And, actually, has a somewhat more conventionally happy ending for most of the main characters - that is, lovers get paired off, good people are rewarded, bad people are punished. With the exception of Kennit the Pirate King who, while he was indubitably a bad person, was previously quite nuanced -- yet in this volume is a villain to be disposed of. Sadness.